Friday, December 28, 2007

Bluegrass Fever


I got a mandolin for Christmas! And if that’s not a random gift, I don’t know what is! No actually I’ve wanted one for awhile but it was totally a surprise. Christmas was wonderful and low-key. The snow cover left much to be desired but I had a relaxing few days off. Now I’m headed on a road trip to New York City for New Year’s with a very good friend. More to follow.

Monday, December 24, 2007

My Birthday and Christmas

My birthday was on Saturday, and it was perfect. I had to work in the morning at the gym and afterwards I went home to my parent's house in Fairport and opened gifts. I got some pretty yarn for knitting, and (drumroll please) RUNNING SNOWSHOES!!! So of course I had to go try them out. My dad and I went to Indian hill and did a short hike. They work great and I can't wait to do workouts in them. I couldn't believe how high I could get my heart rate running up those hills. Perfect, because I needed another hobby.

Today I went to Indian Hill again (gorgeous) and then church with my family.

Tomorrow is a low-key Christmas, which will hopefully include skiing, weather permitting.

HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY!!!

www.emilywright.org

I finally have a website. This will hopefully aid me in the future with any sort of sponsorship opportunities I may seek... for now it's more of a fun project. I've been working on it for months, and (I think) it's finally functional and pretty enough to unveil. Enjoy!!

the website

the blog

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Inconsequential Update

So finals are over and I hardly know what to do with myself. It's a great feeling. Yesterday afternoon I skied for a good while at MPP and then went straight over to the red barn at RIT for a few hours of climbing with Tim, Bryan, Drew, and Joel. I am exhausted. But--winter break!! So what the hell? I let myself sleep in until 8am this morning and then sat around in my pajamas til noon doing work on my computer.

I went to Wegmans this afternoon, which is always fabulous. I don't know what got into me, but I left with a cart filled with no less than 10 kinds of vegetables: carrots, celery, green beans, broccoli, radishes, lettuce, a pepper, a cucumber, grape tomatoes, and an onion. Weird.

I'm headed out to lift weights now, and afterwards I need to finish getting/making/wrapping my Christmas presents. Mostly just wrapping, though... because I am totally on top of things. Even though I can't believe Christmas is in 6 days (not to mention my birthday even sooner!)

More interesting/ridiculous adventure posts are soon to follow. It's winter break!!!!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Global warming?

It's global storming baby!! This snowstorm has been incredible. I don't remember it snowing so much since the winter of 2002-2003. It's fabulous. There's so much snow, that the skiing sucks!! Because nobody grooms!! It's a beautiful thing.

There are other things about which to be excited besides the snowstorm: the first world cup win EVER by a female American cross-country skier!! This is a big deal; now the excitement of Kikkan's success is filtering down to the rest of us. (or at least to me!) Average nor-dorks, ex-high-school skiing superstars, and fasterskier junkies across the country are excited for her, excited for the US ski team, excited to get out there and be a tiny part of it. It's very motivating to have a confirmation of success in The Process. Yes, it is working. Now we can enjoy a glimmer of hope that our own skiing careers will parallel Kikkan's: hard work+ years of dedication = reaching your goals. Patience, grasshopper.

I'm going to do a fairly heavy load this week, and see if I can't transpose some of the kayak team's workouts onto my skis. But that's not until tomorrow at 2:30, when I walk out of my statistics final as a free woman. I need to study. I'm going to grab some coffee and snowshoe up to the conservatory and do my work in the greenhouse!!


Happy skiing.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

snowstorm!

Well, almost. Eight inches of snow fell today and more is coming. Today was my last day of classes (of my first semester of college!) I have two finals on Tuesday (physics and statistics) and then I will be free to do Whatever I Want for 5 weeks. I can't wait. I'm imagining all the possible scenarios: Florida, California, Ottowa, heck, why stop there, how about Europe, New Zeland, the moon... but more realistically, Lake Placid, and Salmon Hills. I would like to ski as much as possible, and I'm itching for a roadtrip. Gosh, that sounds like the recipe for perfection.

Yesterday night, before all this snow fell, I skied at the brand new Bristol Mountain Summit Nordic Center with Brian and Alan. I have such fond memories of traveling to Bristol (a 50 min drive from Rochester) to hike in the autumns with Coach Weston, ski at the top in the wintertime, or downhill on weekends with my high school friends. So it was disappointing to be disappointed in the Nordic Center, if you know what I mean. They only have a 1.2k loop groomed right now, and it's almost totally flat. The only other loop-1.3k- which isn't groomed right now- is only slightly more "hilly." Additionally, they advertise as being open until 10pm but actually they kicked us off the trails just after 9. One thing they do have going for them: the new yurt! It is warm and spacious! Sure beats the old summit ambiance: a snowbank in which to throw your skibags after hiking a mile from your car to the racecourse. Also, I can't overlook the fact that they have about a hundred giant snow cannons, so if the winter was to warm up like last year's, we'd all be flocking to Bristol to bail us out of our stunned snow-lessness. Final word: I only plan on going to Bristol if A. There's no snow anywhere closer, or B. I'm watching my little sister Anna compete in the league races.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Cryotherapy

I did next to nothing today... just homework and creating this new header, which still needs work. I am ridiculously tired and unmotivated, but it's been a rough week [with the shoulder thing] so I'm cool about taking it easy.

Speaking of which, my saving grace as far as shoulder pain has been my brand new robotic arm! (My mom got it for me on ebay this week.) I refer to him fondly as "Iceman" and we've gotten pretty close... we sleep together every night.

If you've ever had surgery you've probably used one... it's a cuff with tiny channels in it that's hooked up to a cooler full of ice water. The cuff goes around your shoulder, and when you turn it on, the ice water flows through the channels and "ices" your shoulder. Then you just crawl under lots of blankets, put on toasty socks, a hat, and mittens, and race to fall asleep before the cold sets in. Sort of uncomfortable, but it really works to reduce muscle spasming during the night. It also works to produce very "cold-related" dreams: so far this week, I've gone searching for polar bears, camping in the Arctic with no sleeping bag, and kayaking in San Diego when a snowstorm hits. I'm hoping tonight's will involve mountain climbing... Himalayas, maybe, but I'd settle for Alps... or even Rockies!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Eat more carrots

So there I was: last lap of the session, dead headlamp batteries, foggy glasses, too dark to see anything. I was tucking blindly down Fawn Hill, thinking about the hundreds and hundreds of deer in Mendon Ponds Park, and sure enough---- a huge deer! Right in front of me! Not moving! No time to stop! I swerved into the woods and he jumped out of the way just in time. Scared me half to death before I realized that this is just a hilarious example of how Mendon Ponds- not to mention its friendly, intrepid deer population- is Out Of Control!! I love it. Go ski!

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

The legs feed the wolf

... which is especially pertinent because I am reading Call of the Wild.

10k no-poles skate this evening, preceded by 1 hr of kicking laps in the pool. My legs are torched, but I'm thinking that I might have a great butt by the end of the winter.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Emily's Armless Workout

The new game plan for nasty triggerpoints is to rest the area for a week so that the guys at PT have a fighting chance at working them out. This kind of sucks, because we're getting tons of snow in Rochester for great skiing, and this is my hard volume week, which was supposed to include lots of lifting, skiing, swimming, and other arm-related activities. But it's okay; now I get to be creative. (and get rid of the pain!)

If you ever find yourself without arms, and you still really want to work out, try this:

Stretching +
3x10 leg dyno press (or any leg press machine)
3x10 deep squats with jump
3x10 calf raises
3x10 deep squats on bosu with jump
3x10 calf raises on Bosu
3x10 deep jumping lunges (quick)
+ all the ab exercises you can think of that don't use your arms
+ all the low back exercises " " " " " "
+ shoulder rehab routine, which I will not detail here.

You can also: airdyne bike (just legs), abs til you drop, slide-board, balance board, step-ups, kicking in the pool (on stomach or on back) biking, stair-climbing, running workouts, hiking/skiing without poles, and balance activities on Bosu or physio ball (close eyes, pelvic tilts, arm circles, etc.)

There's no excuse for having no arms.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Live vicariously through me

It snowed, what, like 6 inches last night?! I woke up this morning and all I wanted to do was let out one of those famous Roger Weston roars.

So after doing chores all morning, I packed a thermos of coffee and skied for 3 hours at Mendon Ponds Park. You know that feeling when you go out for a long training distance, and you just sort of turn off your brain and don't think about anything? Then all of a sudden, it's dark outside and you've skied over 20k; you realize you're tired and hungry, but you don't even remember the entire training session except for the overwhelming feeling of how much you love to ski.

The whole watertower loop was rolled and skied in pretty well by the time I got there at 1pm, so I skied it six times, and then, satisfied with 15k, I threw on another fleece and ventured out to the West Meadow. It wasn't groomed at all, and the snow was getting pretty wet and heavy, so I crossed the road (over by the boat launch) and it was rolled all the way out to just across from Pond Rd. Turning around from there, it was rolled all the way past the dock, a loop in the meadow where the XC course starts/finishes, around the back of the cobblestone house, and then almost all the way down to Hopkins Pt. Road. Crazy!!!! They never used to groom the other side of the road like that, at least not since I started skiing. And I was the first person to ski on it all day, ha. I don't think anyone knows about it. Like I said, the snow was wet, but the track was skied in so well, if it freezes tonight and then snows a bit tomorrow, it's going to be perfect skiing.

I was surprised at how simple the transition to snow seemed. (Maybe it's because I haven't rollerskied??) It took me a few k's to remember how to ski smoothly and get my breathing under control, and then I maintained a pretty good pace from there on out. Half with poles, and half without. I am also proud to report I bombed Fawn hill 5 times... no snowplowing, and no wipeouts. Phew.

I couldn't have asked for a better first day on snow. It's supposed to rain tonight, so tomorrow I may be forced to go check out the new snow-fence novelty at Fairport High School.